


Let Sleeping Archers Lie

by WroughtBetwixt



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Coming Out, Cooking, Domestic, Established Relationship, Humor, M/M, Malcolm Merlyn knows everything, Mild Sexual Content, Secret Identity, Secret Relationship, Series Spoilers, Thea Queen knows nothing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-08
Updated: 2014-11-08
Packaged: 2018-02-24 13:16:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2582732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WroughtBetwixt/pseuds/WroughtBetwixt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Or, "the night Malcolm lets Thea in on a secret is the night that Thea decides that maybe she doesn't need to know everything about everyone, especially if it involves her brother".</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let Sleeping Archers Lie

There were three things Thea Queen didn’t know.  
  
The first was that she didn’t know Oliver Queen was the Arrow. Naturally, it was something Oliver had decided to keep from his baby sister, and it was no surprise. The second thing was that she didn’t know Malcolm Merlyn was the mysterious figure known, overdramatically in Malcolm’s mind, as the “Dark Archer”. Again, none too surprising. Malcolm had thought about telling her both of these things, several times before. It was the third thing Thea didn’t know that stopped him.  
  
The third thing she didn’t know was that, on a more and more frequent basis, after the Arrow and the Dark Archer finished their near-nightly business around the city-- each in their own ways-- the two would usually end the night with Oliver bending Malcolm over the nearest surface and fucking him senseless.  
  
That... that was getting harder to hide, as it began to bleed over into their very much un-superhero-y lives. She’d nearly caught them once before, which is when Thea found out that Oliver and Malcolm had met each other face to face since the Undertaking. It was easy enough to weasel out of it. Oliver had Malcolm against a wall in the Queen mansion, pinned, when Thea walked in while looking for Oliver. Luckily there hadn’t been much to see, and it didn’t take much to make Thea think that Oliver had just been about to beat Malcolm black and blue. Thea was still preciously innocent in some ways, and mistook the heavy breathing for anger instead of interrupted lust.  
  
But one night Thea was pacing her new condo, while Malcolm was over to help her settle in. “He keeps vanishing at night. At the weirdest times. I don’t get it,” she fumed. “He can’t even use Laurel as an excuse, and it’s not like he’s hooked up with some skank from the club.”  
  
Malcolm had almost dropped the vase he’d been holding. “Well, he is a grown man,” he’d replied as mildly as possible. “Maybe he just hasn’t told you.”  
  
Thea stopped, eyes staring right into what Malcolm felt like was his very soul. “He promised me no more secrets. And he’s keeping a secret from me, again. I can tell. It’s something else. And now he knows about you...”  
  
“Oliver isn’t going to hurt me,” Malcolm said. Not unless I beg, he thought. “It’s going to be fine.”  
  
She was already crying. Malcolm winced inwardly, then walked across the room and scooped Thea into his arms, rocking her until she calmed back down. He was going to tell her, he decided. She deserved to know, and maybe it would put at least some of her fears to rest. At least the ones she consciously knew. Of course he had to tell Oliver first, give him warning. Hopefully get him to agree.  
  
It wasn’t as difficult as Malcolm thought-- he waited until a couple nights later to bring it up, after a rough night of chasing robbers. He and Oliver had met along the way, chasing the same perps, and had finished the band of creeps off together. Naturally, now they were in Oliver’s bedroom, happily doing each other over a job well done. Malcolm was shoved back against the bed, naked with Oliver on top of him when Malcolm decided to broach the subject.  
  
“You... You want to tell Thea?” Oliver asked, eyebrows raised. “Are we that official?”  
  
Malcolm laughed, though it was cut off by a moan as Oliver’s hand did a very, very interesting trick. “Depends on you, Arrow.”  
  
Oliver paused, then leaned down and kissed Malcolm. “Make the arrangements, Archer.”  
  
And then that mouth was elsewhere, and Malcolm could hardly argue.  
  
The next day, Malcolm called Oliver with the details. One week from then, he, Oliver and Thea were going to have a dinner; Malcolm told Thea it was a peace offering, so the three of them could talk. It wasn’t a lie. She just didn’t know “the talk” was going to be them giving her the news that her father and her brother were screwing like rabbits in their spare time. It’d be simple, Malcolm told himself. After all, he knew Thea. She was a progressive young lady, intelligent, caring... She’d accept them, right? I mean it wasn’t like Malcolm had killed Oliver’s father, gotten Oliver shipwrecked, gotten Sara supposedly killed, had Walter kidnapped, massacred an entire department of scientists, tried to bury countless people in the name of revenge...  
  
... He needed to stop thinking. Cooking. Yeah. Cooking.  
  
Malcolm spent the next week trying out different recipes, trying to find something Thea would like more than she would hate him. Though she said nothing all week, the night of the dinner, Thea really couldn’t stand any more hacking, chopping, dicing and frying. The stress was hard to _not_ notice, given that Malcolm was hiding from assassins in her condo, and using her kitchen almost every day to massacre plant-stuffs and slabs of various animals. While she was helping to set the dining room table, Thea set down the plates and stared at Malcolm as he unleashed culinary terror on a pot of potatoes with a masher.  
  
“Jesus, dad,” Thea said with a raised eyebrow. “You’ve been snappy for seven days now, and now you’re like, murdering those poor defenseless root vegetables. I know this is going to be awkward as fuck, but you need to relax.”  
  
“Look... I’m sorry. I’m trying to, but I can’t.”  
  
Thea shook her head, grabbing the salad from the kitchen and taking it to the dining room. “Maybe you need to get laid,” she muttered under her breath.  
  
Malcolm paused, setting down the overworked potato masher and giving Thea a look. Oliver wasn’t there yet, but he wasn’t going to get a better segue than that. “The thing is, Thea, I have been.”  
  
“What?” Thea stopped with the bowl of salad still in her hands. Like everyone else Malcolm was close to, Thea knew Malcolm hadn’t gotten serious with anyone since his wife had died... that she knew of. She blinked, curiosity finally overriding the usual child-parent ‘adult discussion avoidance’. “Seriously, who?”  
  
“That’s the reason I can’t relax, Thea. The person I’m seeing--”  
  
And that was when Oliver decided to walk in the door, a bottle of wine in hand and a diplomatic smile on his face. “I know I’m early, but I wanted...” He trailed off, seeing Malcolm there with a sudden smirk on his face. “Mister Merlyn.”  
  
“Mister Queen!” Malcolm said all too cheerfully. “We were just talking about you.”  
  
Thea’s eyebrows furrowed. She opened her mouth to protest, but then froze. Staring at Malcolm, she turned her eyes to Oliver, who was suddenly pale and looked terrified. Thea turned back to Malcolm, mouth still open mid-objection, when the truth suddenly dawned on her face like the sun rising over the sea. “Oh shit,” she said. “Ohh shit.”  
  
Oliver tried to speak first. “Thea, I can explain--”  
  
“No!” Thea squeaked. She set down the salad, holding her hands up in a gesture of surrender. “No, no, you can, but don’t. Please. Holy fuck, you know what? I change my mind. There’s some secrets you two are more than welcome to keep. Okay? Okay!”  
  
And before Oliver could even try, Thea was excusing herself for a “moment alone”, racing out of the room and bolting to the room farthest from them. Oliver and Malcolm watched her go, and then Oliver turned to Malcolm with murder in his eyes.  
  
“Well,” Malcolm said after a beat of pause. “At least she won’t be wondering where you spend your nights anymore.”  
  
Oliver sighed, sinking into a chair and opening the wine. They were going to need it.


End file.
